A set of corporate governance guidelines backed by the chief executives of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and other top companies also got some applause from a governance advocate. For the most part.

The corporate principles, unveiled in full-page newspaper advertisements Thursday, were endorsed by 13 high-profile company and money management executives. They include calls to consider eliminating dual share class voting and to include stock-based compensation in non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles earnings measurements, among other things.

“The publication of these principles is a call to action for U.S. companies large and small to adopt effective corporate governance standards and practices,” said Ken Bertsch, executive director of the Council of Institutional Investors, a Washington advocacy group, in a prepared statement.

“The principles should have gone further on shareholder rights,” Mr. Bertsch said. “While they acknowledge the recent adoption of proxy access mechanisms by dozens of U.S. companies, they stop short of endorsing the common-sense right of long–term shareholders at all public companies to place their nominees for director on a company’s proxy card.”

The statement from the Council also said the principles did not address what it called the duty of boards to act on shareholder proposals that a majority of shareholders endorse.

In any case, the executive group’s announcement left companies plenty of wiggle room in how to approach the guidelines. “These recommendations are not meant to be absolute,” it said. “We know that there is significant variation among our public companies and that their approach to corporate governance will inevitably (and appropriately) reflect those differences.”

Addressing boardroom issues, the principles call for directors to meet independently of CEOs and to engage with other, lower level executives. The board members themselves should have diverse skills and backgrounds.

The guidelines said that non-GAAP numbers should not be reported in a way that obscures GAAP results and that companies should not feel obligated to give earnings guidance.

Institutional investors should have access to management on proxy-related matters, and companies should have access to decision makers at investment firms, according to the principles.

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